The streamer Charles “MoistCr1tical” White (28) is considered a savvy insider in the gaming scene. He is now taking aim at Twitch, Amazon’s streaming service. He talks about “terrible decisions” and believes Twitch is a sinking ship that many are jumping off.
Twitch was for a long time the leading and virtually only provider in live streaming, with a strong focus on gaming. Between 2018 and 2021, Twitch peaked, broke into the mainstream, and became relevant. But since then, it seems to be going downhill.
This is the situation:
- Twitch was founded in 2011. In the beginning, it was the Wild West – they were surprised by their success and had great difficulty organizing themselves and moderating the masses of problematic content. This “chaos phase” ended when Amazon took over the company in 2014 and professionalized it.
- In 2018, the site grew strongly due to a synergy effect with “Amazon Prime”: Those who subscribed to “Amazon Prime” could gift a streamer a free “Twitch Prime” subscription, which brought in money. With the rise of Fortnite, the site exploded. Streamers who had previously streamed in their spare time alongside their studies or jobs soon started doing it professionally. And even during the pandemic, Twitch continued to grow.
- However, 2023 seems to be going downhill. Competitors like YouTube and Kick have attracted some of the biggest streamers with lucrative offers. Additionally, Twitch likely needs to turn a profit and is increasing pressure on streamers with worse contract terms and plans to push them to do more advertising on the platform themselves.
This is what the insider says now: MoistCr1tical is a streamer on Twitch, but as the head of an e-sports team, he also has a unique understanding of the business side. He often comments on events on Twitch. For him, the platform is currently in a difficult situation with a lot of problems. Twitch has maneuvered itself into this position.
The biggest streamer on Twitch, xQc, has signed a non-exclusive deal with Kick. The Canadian could still stream on Twitch, but why would he?
xQc has no reason to continue streaming on Twitch. Twitch is a platform that has banned xQc 5 times. It’s a platform that no longer offers real contracts for its top streamers and has a lower revenue split on subscriptions than any other platform, while Kick has the highest.
So why on earth would xQc stream on Twitch more often? He will only use Twitch as a signal booster to bring the Juicers [his fans] from Twitch over to Kick.
“Twitch has made one terrible decision after another”
In any case, the streamer sees Twitch critically at the moment. They have made a number of decisions over the past few years that are detrimental to themselves.
They are making one terrible decision after another, and they are constantly losing users. A lot of people have already gone elsewhere. This is the reason why so many are leaving the sinking ship Twitch. Twitch is completely out of touch. It’s crazy to watch a business sink itself when it has complete control over a market.
Twitch is struggling to find its way in the new world
Is he right? Ultimately, large streamers who have already built up a reach discuss only one aspect:
Who is currently paying me the most?
andWhere can I earn the most?
Kick seems to be paradise from this perspective, as they are throwing around their casino money to attract streamers and viewers. The question is, how does the model finance itself in the long term?
Twitch is apparently out of its gold rush phase, which was funded by Amazon Prime, and is now struggling to find its way in a new world where their top talents are being lured away for massive sums.
Streamers like xQc said that they had “fear of switching” and thought about it for a long time, but now, after the first ones have switched, this fear is gradually diminishing.
Even those who moved from Twitch to YouTube for decent amounts of money rave about the decision. They no longer face the pressure to be online constantly to generate Twitch subs.
It has also become difficult for Twitch to enforce its standards: A ban used to mean practically a professional ban for streamers. DrDisrespect was derailed by the Twitch ban. Now people just switch to other platforms and make jokes about Twitch.
Many who switch to Kick use Twitch intentionally to attract viewers to Kick by streaming for 30 minutes on Twitch and then saying: Okay, now I’ll continue on Kick. Follow me there.
Twitch is currently a topic in the scene for us as well. The biggest Twitch streamer in Germany wants to know: “You will be shocked to see which German streamers are switching to Kick”
At the moment, Twitch does appear to be struggling, but more like a staggering boxer, not like a sinking ship. And people are not leaving the ship because it is sinking, but because they are lured away with bags of money.
In any case, there has been movement in the streamer scene, fueled by the shopping sprees of YouTube and Kick. Whether this is ultimately good for gaming is hard to say. Currently, it apparently benefits the bank accounts of multimillionaires who could already afford five-course meals in luxury restaurants but preferred to order the maxi menu at Burger King:
